Americans on Hold Documentary Film and Advocacy Project

In 2010, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justuice at NYU School of Law produced a documentary film Americans on Hold: Profiling, Prejudice, and National Security. The documentary film exposes the U.S. government’s use of discriminatory profiling in the name of national security, and its impact on South Asian, Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim community members. Through the personal stories of Zuhair Mahd and Anila Ali, the film reveals the discriminatory profiling at the heart of both citizenship delays and border-crossing detentions and delays. Ali, a teacher, mother, and community organizer originally from Pakistan, received her American citizenship in 2002, but continues to experience humiliating and invasive treatment by Customs and Border Protection officials as a consequence of her national origin. Mahd, a blind adaptive technology specialist from Jordan, waged and won a five-year legal struggle against the Department of Homeland Security in his effort to become a U.S. citizen. In the process, he was repeatedly interrogated and pressured by the FBI to become an informant.

KJ